23 The man, the master of the house, went out to them, and said to them, “No, my brothers, please don’t act so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into my house, don’t do this folly. 24 Behold, here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. I will bring them out now. Humble them, and do with them what seems good to you; but to this man don’t do any such folly.” 25 But the men wouldn’t listen to him: so the man laid hold of his concubine, and brought her out to them; and they had sex with her, and abused her all night until the morning: and when the day began to dawn, they let her go. 26 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, until it was light. 27 Her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. 28 He said to her, “Get up, and let us be going!” but no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place. 29 When he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the borders of Israel. 30 It was so, that all who saw it said, “There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt to this day! Consider it, take counsel, and speak.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Judges 19:23-30
Chapter Contents
The wickedness of the men of Gibeah.
The three remaining chapters of this book contain a very sad history of the wickedness of the men of Gibeah, in Benjamin. The righteous Lord permits sinners to execute just vengeance on one another, and if the scene here described is horrible, what will the discoveries of the day of judgment be! Let each of us consider how to escape from the wrath to come, how to mortify the sins of our own hearts, to resist Satan's temptations, and to avoid the pollutions there are in the world.